We’re more than halfway through March, and we think it’s fair to say you all are having lots of fun creating Spring & Easter cards with us!  The entries for the first half of the monthly contest have been fantastic - you can view them all HERE.  And now it’s time to announce our first batch of winners for the month… (YAY!!)

We were completely wowed by the winner of our Digital category, Virginia L!  She printed out the birdcage from our digital kit three times and folded it to open on the front of her card.  As if that’s not clever enough, she used the wing of a little butterfly to hold the cage closed. Well done!

DchsofAbby is our Fresh Face for the first half of March!  Not only is her card completely adorable, and her woven Easter basket completely fabulous, but just typing her username makes us feel like there’s royalty among us!  Love it!

And now on to our Fab Five, presented in no particular order.  Just like our Digital and Fresh Face winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree!

Paper Girl created such a fun scene using a wide array of stamps, including our sweet little bicycle.  Such a perfect card done in only one layer, with just the tiniest touch of embellishment.

Our second fabulous card was created by stampstudio1 (Susan).  The soft colors of blue and light brown are beautifully mixed, offering a peaceful look at the upcoming spring season.  And Susan had a smart idea - she stamped the flower images right over the flowers on her patterned paper - so clever!

Our Tall Birdhouse completely shines on this beautiful creation from rhea1967.  Her coloring is gorgeous, and we love that she wasn’t afraid to pair it with those rather bold patterned papers.  They’re not necessarily the colors you think of for spring, but it certainly gives the feel of warmth and sunshine on a spring day!

The next card from Fiona Y is so lovely with it’s lace, butterflies and happy colors!  Her image panel is absolutely stunning.

And last but not least, another beauty from maropeusa.  Her design is crisp and clean, and her use of color is perfection.

Congratulations to all the winners!!  Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product!  You can look through our store HERE to create your list.  Please include “March2010A Winner” in the subject line. We are upgrading our mail server over the weekend, so please email us by Friday at 9 pm PST or wait until Monday.  Thanks!

Our March contest is still underway, so get your Spring & Easter creations uploaded!  Check out the details HERE.

Now as you all know, our Hero Hostesses have been busy answering questions, showering us with lovely comments and generally making things FUN over in our Flickr community, but guess what!  They have been creating up a storm this month too!  Here’s a sampling of what they’ve been up to…

Click on any circle for a full view!
Cards by Vera Rhuhay, Sue McRae, Suzanne Czosek, Linda Metteer, Jill Foster, Arlene McClung.

Do you think that’s all the inspiration you can handle in one day?  Well, we have more!  We can’t go without sharing a 100 Days of Ideas card with you, now can we?

Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Tami will be back tomorrow with more Easter dress inspiration.  Until then, happy stamping!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We’re lucky to have the sweet and talented Lucy Abrams joining us today for some Easter dress inspiration…and a video too!

Let’s begin by taking a look at the lovely pink hydrangea dress Lucy selected for her inspiration today. So pretty…fit for a princess!

Can you guess which new stamp Lucy was inspired to use after seeing this dress? If you guessed the Hydrangea, you are correct! A classic image like this never goes out of style, whether in fashion or in papercrafting. Taking cues from both the colors and the flowers, Lucy created this absolutely beautiful thank you card. The delicate colors and images she used work so wonderfully together here. I love it!

Card by Lucy Abrams. Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Watch below as Lucy shares how she colored the hydrangea by mixing Copic markers and colored pencils. She shows another lovely blue card variation in the video as well!

And we have even more lovely blossoms on our “100 Days” card below. Sally Traidman’s cheerful birthday greeting features similar colors and a happy little flower from the Cling Blossoms set. This would be a great card to create a few of at a time to have on hand for spring birthdays.

Card by Sally Traidman. Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Thanks for stopping by today! Tomorrow we’ll be presenting the first round winners for the March challenge, and then on Friday I’ll return with more Easter dress inspiration. Until then, take care!

Stamp something green today,

Welcome back to another day of Easter dress inspiration! Having two daughters, I’m having WAY too much fun picking out the inspiration pieces this week! This time around we have cute little number — this Vintage Dress from Mini Boden. Simply sweet and fresh, I adore this dress! The bright green is a fun alternative to spring pastels and the pink and white set it off to perfection. Yep, I feel a card coming on…

The floral pattern on this dress brought to mind the Flower Wallpaper Cling background. I used this stamp two ways — embossed white on white, and stamped tone on tone with greens. Of course I had to bring in some bright pink satin ribbon. Details like glitter, gems, and stitching are to a card what jewelry, headbands, and purses are to an outfit — perfect finishing touches!

Card by Tami Hartley. Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

How about some more inspiration with that wonderful Flower Wallpaper stamp? Here’s our 100 Days of Ideas card, courtesy of Jennifer McGuire. Her card is the ultimate in spring cheerfulness and would brighten anyone’s day. Love it! This was not planned but I just noticed how many similar elements are on both of our cards today — a stitched strip with sentiment, a fluttering butterfly, scallops, and rounded corners. It’s all in the details!

Card by Jennifer McGuire. Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Now we have a special event to tell you about! We’re having an Egg Hunt and you’re invited! Just grab a basket and hop on over to the Hero Arts Flickr group to read the details HERE! We have two fabulous giveaways — an assortment of springy stamps for one winner PLUS a Hero Arts shopping spree for another!  Here’s a glimpse of the eggs the Hero Hostesses will be hiding for you to find over the course of the next week…

Regular egg

Golden egg (rare!)

We hope you have fun hunting! Be sure to check back each day until March 23. We’ll announce the winners here on the blog on Thursday, March 25. Good luck!

Tomorrow one of our artists will be here with her Hero Arts video debut. Can’t wait!

Have a wonderful day,

Hi! Welcome to a new week! This week I’ll be taking you on a stroll through the clothing department and sharing cards inspired by Easter dresses! Inspiration can be found every day and every place you look. I often find myself looking at fabric and clothing and dreaming of new card designs. (Please tell me I’m not the only one?)

I was browsing baby girl outfits this past week, and as soon as I laid my eyes on this Daisy Party Dress from babyGap.com, I was inspired to stamp. It’s soft, sunny, and decidedly springy! The allover large scale daisy print instantly made me think of creating a card with a big flower as the main design element.

I turned to the aptly named Large Flower stamp and decided to stop running from the color yellow. I don’t have anything against the color, I just don’t find myself using it very often for some reason. Spring seems like the perfect time to give it a whirl! The Hero Hues Daffodil papers are a nice buttery yellow, very easy to use. Here I colored the flower with white and yellow colored pencils on kraft paper for a bit of a rustic feel.

Card by Tami Hartley. Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

For our 100 Days idea today, Robyn Werlich also created a card with a bold flower as the focus, opting for a vibrant red on the layered die cut flower. This flower is one of the many wonderful Hero Arts Silhouette images. (You can see all of the Hero Arts Silhouette designs HERE.)  Isn’t the color combination on Robyn’s card fabulous?!

Card by Robyn Werlich. Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

And just a reminder in case you’re joining us for the first time this month, our March challenge is underway!

The theme is Spring & Easter and HERE is a post with all of the pertinent information on submitting, prizes, and deadlines! Won’t you play along? We love seeing your creativity at work and look forward to seeing where the challenge topic takes you this month.

See you tomorrow for another dress and two more cards!

When they asked me to use the sneak peek stamps, I got carried away.  Here’s one last idea this week with our new butterfly stamp. I love stamping black on colored papers to minimize my coloring with markers. This way you can just accent.

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

And for the 100 Days of Ideas card, these cling flower stamps work great with embossing and coloring in.

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

And one more quick reminder before I go - today is the FINAL DAY to take advantage of FREE SHIPPING in the Hero Arts Online Store!  Enter code SPRINGFUN at checkout.  (US orders only, $20 minimum purchase, cannot be combined with other offers.)

Hope you enjoyed the week! Come back Monday - it will be Tami’s turn to inspire us!

Thought I would pop in here briefly to show you another “make it work” trick.  The middle flower needed to be higher than the ones on each side.  I made the stem longer by reinking only the bottom of the stem and stamping it below the stamped image.

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

And for our 100 Days idea, here are those same flowers again, but just their heads without the stems.

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

A reminder before I go, this is a great weekend to shop at the Hero Arts Online Store!  Enter promo code SPRINGFUN at check out to receive FREE SHIPPING now through March 14th! (US orders only, $20 minimum purchase, cannot be combined with other offers.)

Enjoy your weekend…

These cute little bunnies from the New for Spring release  just cried out “fuzzy tails” to me.  I found some pom poms in my stash - perfect!  And once again I needed an appropriate greeting, so I stamped out “HOPPY EASTER” from the Cute Uppercase clear alphabet set to “make it work.”  I thought the tiny pearls tied in with the pom poms.

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

And Lisa made it work for our 100 Days of Ideas card. She needed to make a grassy hill, so she curved the flexible clear grass stamp to make the shape she wanted. That is what is sooooo cool about clear stamps.

Card by Lisa Spangler.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Have a great weekend everyone and make part of it STAMPING!

Hello and welcome to Social Club Thursday!  With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, today we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the fabulous St. Patty’s creations that were shared over on Flickr as submissions to last month’s contest.  So green!  So festive!  So fun!!

Clockwise from the upper left corner, these wonderful cards were created by:  cess.thotts (view the card HERE), hands-paper-scissors (HERE), louisemorcharlton (HERE), judy1223 (HERE), wardn85(Nancy) (HERE) and dustypenny (HERE).  Thank you ladies, you are welcome to display our Social Club blinkie on your blog, if you have one!

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in the February contest!  You never know when your creation may show up on this blog!  And speaking of contests, the first round of entries for this month’s challenge are due tonight! Remember, the first round of entries are automatically entered in the second round, so the earlier you enter the more chances you have to win.  Click HERE for all the details. If you miss tonight’s deadline though, no worries — you have until March 25th to enter. Good luck!

Now it’s time for the 100 Days of Ideas project - today we have another layout for you!  This beauty from Vicki Boutin features fantastic use of color and Hero Arts images for Silhouette.

Scrapbook page by Vicki Boutin.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Thanks for stopping by today!

I LOVE sending cards to my girlfriends.  And I LOVE receiving them!  Here’s a card using one of the sneak peeks from last week, our cute little chicks.  Since I couldn’t find any appropriate “chick” greetings, I once again “made it work” with our small case alphabet.  Its playfulness goes with the cuteness of the chicks.  You just knew I would get something pink and orange in this week!!

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

For our 100 Days card, I wanted to show you the same chick from yesterday used in another way.  She is just so fun and festive, she could be announcing anything!

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

In keeping with our theme this week, let’s “make it work” with some leftover-too-good-to-throw-away-tissue paper!!

OK… now let’s get busy… hopefully something from today has inspired you!  If you’re debating what to stamp next, I’d like to remind you that our month long theme is Spring & Easter and the first round of projects are due into the Flickr group pool tomorrow night, Thursday, March 11th, by 11:59pm PST. Be sure to tag your projects with March2010A.

AND one more exciting bit of news before I go…a big congratulations to our very own Kelly Rasmussen, proud mother of a new little CHICKLET, Lexi, born yesterday. Let’s hear it for PINK!!!

Lexi Elyse Rasmussen
Born 12:15pm
8 lbs. 5 oz.
Full head of dark hair…
Sweet as can be…
Mom and baby doing fantastic!

And of course Aunt Tami is very proud of her sweet little niece, too!

Happy Stamping!

I just couldn’t let the opportunity go by to make a card for St. Patrick’s day. But with no shamrocks, leprechauns, or St. Pat’s greetings I was stumped… but only for a few minutes!  It’s another chance to “make it work“.

OK, green is a given. So I perused our catalog for SOMETHING that resembled a three or four leaf clover. Found it… an entire cluster of shamrock looking flowers, our new Designs in Wood K5358 Floral Scallop!  They got stamped in black ink and painted in with shades of green watercolors.  Then I trimmed off the scallop edging,  as it didn’t seem to go with my next invention.  My big shamrock was made out of a heart shaped button stamp from CL406 Buttons!  Check it out!

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

Our 100 Days card for today is from one of my favorite flower sets. You will see many ideas with it this week!

Card by Sally Traidman.  Click HERE for complete supplies and instructions.

So, challenge yourself.  You have a week before St. Patrick’s Day and I am SURE one of your friends would love a card. Grab some stamps and invent YOUR Irish greeting!!  Good LUCK!

And finally before I go, here’s our sixth and final preview before the “New for Spring” release!  What is this?  Perhaps a little something that could be used on the back of a card?  You’ll see the entire stamp tomorrow - it’s the day that all the new designs will be available in the Hero Arts Online Store! And I hear we’ll be having a special store promo as well…it’s a good one so be sure to stop back tomorrow and check it out!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy stamping,